(This is a thread for Patrick's Friday night game. If you play in it post here. If not ... Historians note: The conversation over Rively's reincarnation took place before you re-entered the dungeon. That conversation can still happen in IM and be reported for XP. This thread happens immediately following the end of last weeks game.)
The mechanical sound and elephant trumpet fades into the distance. The hissss of the gas, barely audible filling the corridor beyond, clicks off, leaving only the dead silence common in this dungeon. The broken 'forged lies at your feet. The shadowy corridor seems in itself oppressive. There is just the three of you now. You know there is another body not far, just beyond the door, but how to retrieve it without brining the horrible thing out again? You three stare at each other for a while. Someone has to say something, to break the silence, just what to say exactly, that is the question.

Raina looks down at the squashed warforged. Do constructs get buried? she wonders. A lot of people have died here. Herself included! Part of her wants to run from here, just be done with the place. But what will that accomplish? If nothing is done, if this place is just left as it is, others will be lured here, lured to their deaths. She was brought back into this time and place just for the purpose of defeating the evil within these walls. She wonders what the powers that brought her back would have to say about her just walking from here and not accomplishing the purpose she was brought back for.

She thinks about the body of the bard, Ilio in the hallway and again looks down at the Warforged. She wonders what so many deaths mean and if they can get through this place to defeat the demi litch at all. "So many have died," she says quietly. "I wish we could stop this evil so that it doesn't have to happen to the next group to come here..." her voice trails off as she gets lost in emotion.

Rivley fidgeted with the fraying edge of her makeshift linen coverings. These new orcish hands felt big and clumsy. And hideous. The powers that be had a cruel sense of humor. "Well... You wanted to see what it would be like to reincarnate a warforged..," she mumured, meerly joking to Yadali, trying to lighten the mood even the slightest bit. What now? It hardly seemed worth it to continue on. She wanted revenge. They all probably did. She wasn't particularly fond of Ilio, but he didn't really deserve his fate... none of them did. "Should... we head back out...?"

Raina sighs, not knowing what to do. At this point she is mourning and her thoughts race. She rattles them off as fast as they come to her.

"If we are going to look for some sort of resurection, Jurasco would be our best bet, provided we really want to travel that far and have the gold to get it done." She tells everyone. "However the nearest major house Jurasco place would be in the city of Vedykar in Karnath. I'm sure there are some healing houses in the Talenta plains, although since that's not where their headquarters are, and this is powerful magic we'd be asking for I don't know whether they could help us...
Also if we are to continue here, we may need to recruit help, which might be better found in a bigger city."

She pauses, thinking about what Rivley has just said "Unless you really were thinking of reincarnation" she adds with a smirk.

Ailio was going to get himself obliterated. There was nothing Dagger could do to stop the elephantine golem's assault. He could not overpower it. But he could distract it. That might have been enough to save his comrade. There was a chance that Ailio could escape if he created a diversion.

He had heard the voice of his old commander. Pattern delta. Dagger, take point and stay low. Don't shoot until you can hear 'em clanking. Draw their fire and then get the hell out. We'll come in from the western angle once they've volleyed blanks.

It was the same situation. He needed to risk his existence to support his comrades. Only this time no one was giving him orders. He was making this decision on his own. Was this another means of exercising "free will?"

He had fired, and the construct's attention had been diverted to the warforged. The war engine was putting all of its weight on his chest. Dagger had a vague sensation that he was being destroyed. The mithril plating of his chest cracked and his livewood skeleton began to split apart at the seams, fissures growing ever wider. A psicrystal vein along the right side of his chest splintered and faded, no longer emitting its characteristic blue glow. He had been deactivated before, experienced what humans called "unconsciousness." But this was considerably more serious. He was about to be obliterated, his essence dissolved into the ambient energy of the planes.

Dagger felt fear, but it was a distant emotion, like he was afraid for someone he was watching in a play. It was too difficult to internalize the notion of his own demise. He understood that House Cannith had only programmed a fear of death into warforged because they had wanted the manufactured soldiers to have a survival instinct. Soldiers with no will to survive, Cannith had found, were not willing to push themselves to their limit in the face of imminent destruction.

It will end soon, Dagger thought. He could sense, vaguely, that his torso was cracking in half at an angle where the golem was pressing him into the floor. He would be split from hip to thigh, torn asunder by his foe. Hopefully Ailio would survive.

Yadali stood very still, only her eyes moving as she glanced from the warforged on the ground up to the door. Beyond that door lay the body of an ally. Certainly not a friend or even an acquaintance, but one of hers. She owed him a chance. But could she get to him? Not likely. She knew that she had a better chance against magical sleep than most folks, but she didn't have enough confidence in it to run beyond that door, risk a great fire-sucking screaming rolling elephant golem, and make it back safely with Ailio without dropping to the floor herself.

Choices. But there was such a thing as an acceptable loss. Ailio's body would stay here, and Yadali knew that. Dagger... she could still help him. Maybe. Even that she wasn't sure of at all...

The druid girl growled deep in her throat, a sound so thick with malice that Alex's fur bristled in respose as the fox tensed. It wasn't normal for the light-hearted changeling to be so clearly and completely... angry.

Meanwhile the others were talking. She waved a hand dismissively to both of them. "If I have to do this every damn day, I am going to get very very tired of it. Granted! I don't really mind all that much. I'm obviously allowed to do this or I wouldn't be.... allowed... to do it. You know what I mean." She sighed and pressed her palm over her eyes for a moment. "Cac," she cursed. "All right. We need to get Dagger out of here. I need to think about this."

She pointed at Raina. "Hey. Commander. You said Karnath? That's pretty far, yeah." The druid chewed her lower lip, unaccustomed to the sudden need for a real and prolonged serious discussion. "Well, it's certainly possible that I could get him back the way he was. I don't think he'd mind. But still...." She scratched the top of her head absently. "I'm not sure I could, and I... I kinda want to talk to---who was it? House Jurasco? Yeah. Them."

There was a lot to consider here. The only reason Yadali tolerated creatures like warforged was that they couldn't reproduce. Eventually they would die out and their existence would correct itself. But if they could be brought back through proper divinely-sanctioned means... did that mean they were okay? It didn't seem to be so to Yadali, but then she was just a person. What did she know?

And anyway. Dagger was one of hers, too. He was an ally, and he made her laugh. That made him one of the pack, at least for now. And that meant she owed him. She knelt down and started to pull one of the pieces of Dagger into his own haversack. It didn't look like it was going to hold much more than that, but it was certainly a start. She stuffed the legs in and dragged his top half up over her shoulder by the arm.

"All right. Let's go. We'll stop by your little boxes of shinies and those should cover most of the costs of getting him back. You guys don't have to come, but I'm going to do it."

"I'm coming." It wasn't a request to join the druid girl, it wasn't a spoken thought, it was a definite. Rivley didn't have to think about it. When you've been through something like this, you become close to those that traveled with you, and those that brought you back from oblivion. Even if it was a way less than satisfactory transition, she was still alive. And that was good enough. In the back of her mind, she knew something like this might happen. Let's say... a little birdie told her.

"I can help carry him... or his things... or... whatever needs carried..." She felt somewhat useless. She had no means to help her fallen comrade and she was of little use if they did come across a big scary on their way out. The least she could do was manual labor. She was certain this new body was strong enough for that. It would take some getting used to.

She took a step closer to Rivley and handed over the heavy top-half of their fallen metal friend. "Awesome, thanks."

It was nice to see Rivley beginning to accept some of the benefits of being an orc. Yadali honestly didn't see what her problem was with the whole thing. Most of Yadali's superiors were orcs, and she'd briefly considered taking an orc form for official business just to get more respect. As it was she constantly had to prove that she wasn't some delicate mincing little elf princess.

And anyway, Yadali thought. If there were ever a race with great abs, it's the orcs. Without even trying. Bastards.

Sure, orcs weren't as attractive. To humans. But then no orcs Yadali knew would touch a human female, so soft and mushy and fragile as they were. To an orc Rively was a veritable bombshell. Yadali could tell; it was important to learn these distinctions. Still. She doubted Rively would really be comforted by this unless she came around to seeing orc males as attractive potential mates. Who knew, maybe she'd get over it.

"So!" Yadali dusted off her hands, her usual carefree manner returning. "Let's head back. Commander, will you please lead?"

In reply to Ydalli, Raina simply nods.
"Let's go back to the room with all the gold. Between my bag and the one that used to be Dagger's we should be able to carry alot if not most of the coins there. Then it's out of here. I suppose we should go back to Saltmarsh before we take the longer trip to speak to house Jurasco." She says. "If it is only information you want, I'm sure we can find a healing house somewhere closer. It is only for the big resurrection spells that we will have to go straight to headquarters. Too bad Saltmarsh isn't in the middle of nowhere, or there'd be a bigger presence here."
Raini moves towards the door, thinking that she finally understood the crazy old man that plagued the inn where she worked. Her heart went out to him and his fallen comrades. Now Ilio and Dagger were among them. It had all happened so suddenly, she didn't even find time to weep.

You can of course move freely about the Dungeon. You remember how to get to the chapel. There is 16,000 SP and 5,000 GP to collect. That weighs 480 pounds. It was your home for two days after all. You will need to note precisely how you plan to carry it all. You may move freely about the dudgeon and into the swamp. Just let me know your destination.

Rivley was silent as she carried Dagger bits through the dungeon, reflecting on the events that had just occured and her own misfortune. The physical could be covered up, she was sure, so that wasn't too bad... but it would take some getting used to. And her necklace... She'd lost it when her quipment poofed and since that point she'd kept moving forward in hopes of getting it back. It was her most treasured possession. If she had to pick one thing the walk out of that dungeon with, the silver scale necklace would have been it, no questions asked. Not muh to be done about it now, but she made a silent vow to herself to return and search the place top to bottom until that necklace was found. But she would have to grow stronger first.

Yadali followed Raina, with Rivley behind. When they returned to the chapel, Yadali handed over the haversack containing the lower parts of their warforged friend. She handed that over to the newly-reincarnated orc. "His bag is out, but I've got some room in my backpack, and I think Raina's got one of those super fairy-backpacks or whatever."

They got back in the chapel, and Yadali shook her head sadly. Dagger had felt so guilty for getting them all poisoned looking for all the stupid gold. Now they'd need it to try and bring him back.

He was just a baker, she thought. Should she have just left him alone? No, he wanted to come. He should have called for repairs before that stupid thing trampled him.

The rationalization didn't help much, but it was enough.

"All right. Let's get him outside. We'll head back to town to let them know about Ailio. Something tells me the bard would want his story to get out or whatever, and if we're gonna leave him in there the least we can do is that. Sound like a plan?"

Raina fills her pack with as much as it will hold before they head out of the dungeon.
((I'll have to double check exactly what that is... Yes my character has a haversack too.))

"I wish we didn't have to leave him in there, but we are not capable of dealing with that golem again, and I don't know how to get him out without triggering it. I'd mark an epitaph on the walls, but my marks disappear." Raina said with a sinking heart. "I guess the best we can do right now is to at least ensure that he isn't trampled yet again. Yes we should tell someone. I'm sure he has relatives that should be contacted and I don't know who or where they are.".

You have entered a 30 ft By 30 ft square room. Again this room bears the telltale sign of having been excavated. The southern half of the room is roughly carved and scooped out while northward it gradually changes into signs of more and more magic being used to dig it out.

Sigils sit in a square. 7 of which bear the rune of a color of the rainbow, on each of these sigils sit a potion of that color. The other 5 spell out the word "DRINK." Inexplicably a large maw opens and closes in the center of the square.

A plaque on the north wall bears the message "Alway climbing, always creeping. From the ground I'm never leaving. Silent moving, never falling. Holding fast and multi-handed."

In the northwest corner on the west wall a door blinks in and out of existence. Hakaril determines that each of the potions will set someone slightly off their normal existence. Slightly forward or back in time, Slightly toward one plane or another, or even slightly shifted in space. The right combination of these potions would match someones state of being with the door.

You prisoner has informed you that the answer to the riddle on the plaque should give you an answer that you can use to determine which potion to drink.

Raina looks frustrated. Drinking the green potion doesn't work and she was so certain that the answer to the riddle had been vine. She gazes at the potions sitting on their little colored runes and the huge maw in the middle.
"Perhaps we should feed the potions to that thing." she mutters in disgust.

Again she looks up at the riddle and reads it to herself, yet still she thinks that the answer is vine. She reads it again, this time out loud. "Well what else could it be but a vine or ivy of some sort??" she cries out in frustration.

That's when it dawns on her. "How stupid can we be?!" she says with annoyance, smacking her forehead with the heel of her hand. The answer wasn't vine, it was ivy! I-V-Y. The potions we're supposed to drink, are Indigo, Violet, Yellow. If the potions do indeed replicate themselves, then we just have to take turns drinking them to get through the door.

Yadali stared at Raina. She'd had a damn good idea, and she'd give the Commander that one. But this line of questioning about her nephew was downright weird.

"Uh... yeah... if I ask him. I mean you should see the other stuff we eat." The druid shrugged. "I mean, I'd rather we not test them on him first. He does kinda trust me not to give him things that are going to... I dunno. Make him explode from major reality distortion or... or something." She looked down at the fox, who was staring up at her as if aware that he was being discussed. "But he'll be okay."

Raina laughs out loud. Still high on the cleverness of her sudden realization, she begins to rattle off all her thoughts as fast as they occur to her.
"No no, we don't have to test them on Alex. I just didn't know if animals would drink strange potions or not. I'm sure those potions might not look or smell like food to a critter, and I don't know if he would get through the door without drinking them. Actually, I had assumed that Hikarl would drink them. Unless bumping into himself was too big of a shock last time. Then again, perhaps I should do it. I can check for traps on the other side of the door. I don't trust Aserak not to have a trap within a trap after all... Hey, I wonder how long the potions last? I'd hate to be out of phase with reality for too long. It would be kind of, well weird. I know the green one wore off rather quickly, but it might be different if you drink more than one..."